One WTC Spire Nears End of Long Voyage

The barge carrying pieces of the spire for One World Trade Center passes the Statue of Liberty on the way to Lower Manhattan.

The World Trade Center’s crowning spire has neared the end of the final leg of its monthlong trip to Lower Manhattan.

A barge carrying nine pieces of steel that will stand atop One World Trade Center left New Jersey’s Port Newark on Tuesday, headed to New York Harbor.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo/Instagram

The spire that will top One World Trade Center crosses beneath the Bayonne Bridge on its way to Lower Manhattan.

The sections of spire began their journey to New York from Quebec last month. Once hoisted into place, they will make the tower a symbolic 1,776-feet high — the tallest building not only the city, but also the Western Hemisphere.

But that designation could be in contention. A plan to enclose a 408-foot antenna atop the building with an ornamental white shell, so the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat will have to determine whether the structure can be counted toward its height. As the Journal reported in May:

Omitting the shell, however, raises the question of whether the structure at the top would be counted toward the official height of the building, or whether it would rank as the third-tallest in the U.S. at 1,368 feet to the roof—behind the Willis Tower and a Donald Trump-built tower, both in Chicago.